


5 Times Alison Entertained the Ghosts, and the Time They Returned the Favour

by hourtohourtohour



Category: Ghosts (TV 2019)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Fluff, Found Family, tw food mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:16:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28314414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hourtohourtohour/pseuds/hourtohourtohour
Summary: title says it all!this is my secret santa for Luna!! i hope you enjoy it, and merry christmas!!
Comments: 5
Kudos: 67





	5 Times Alison Entertained the Ghosts, and the Time They Returned the Favour

1\. 

In all honesty, after the ‘Twist It’ debacle, Alison probably should’ve seen this coming.

The idea had come to her during the wedding, seeing the ghosts enjoying themselves dancing among the guests. But, rightfully, she had her doubts so it was on a rainy day a couple weeks later, where the ghosts had been stuck inside all day and as a result were driving Alison up the bloody wall, that she finally cracked out the Just Dance DVDs she’d got them. Immediately the ghosts started flocking around her, inquiring about the discs she was putting in Mike’s xbox.

“Alison! The cassettes don’t go in there!”

“Theys goes in the little peoples box!

“Yeah guys, hang on one sec. This isn’t a film.”

That silenced the ghosts for a couple of seconds, as they tried to figure out what Alison was up to. The brightly coloured words ‘Just Dance’ flashed up on the screen.

“Dancing?” Kitty cried, enthusiastically moving her arms in what might loosely be considered as dancing. “I love dancing!”

“Yes, it’s a dancing game where you have to copy the dance moves on the screen and the one who’s best at it wins. And since you lot won’t show up on the screen, I thought Humphrey could judge the dance moves! Who’s up for it?”

“Me! Me!” Kitty exclaimed, jumping up and down.

“Well, I have got a few moves up my sleeves,” Julian said, rolling his sleeves up and ignoring Fanny, the Captain and Alison’s winces.

“But not down your trousers,” Thomas muttered.

Julian scoffed. “Like you can do better, Thorne. You can’t dance to save your life!”

“You’re on!”

Alison turned to the other ghosts. “Anyone else? Pat, Cap, you were, erm, good at Twister, and Robin and Mary, I saw you two dancing at the wedding!”

Alison took the mix of enthusiastic and half hearted shrugs as a yes and started flicking through the songs.

Hearing Pat’s small cheer when she got to Rasputin, she selected it, placed Humphrey’s head next to the screen and stepped well back. What followed was… interesting.

The best dancer was clearly Pat, although Kitty’s enthusiasm, Cap’s strict adherence to the moves on screen and Robin’s complete disregard of those moves were admirable. Rasputin and Dancing Queen went relatively smoothly, but by Cotton Eyed Joe things were starting to get a little heated. Livin’ La Vida Loca caused everyone to be bumped into a lot and ended up with several elbows and fists to faces (some unintentional, some not), and by the time they got to Toxic, only Thomas and Julian were left on the dance floor, and everyone could probably do with those four minutes wiped from their memories.

Half an hour later the ghosts were still bickering, apart from Pat who was grinning at having won, and Alison decided that maybe Just Dance wasn’t the best way to keep the ghosts entertained. 

2.

Alison was just finishing dusting the mantelpiece when she heard Pat’s voice pipe up from the doorway.

“Hello, Alison! Kitty and I were looking around some of the cupboards and we found some board games, so I thought it might be nice for us to play some!”

Slightly wary of how old these games were going to be, Alison followed Pat up the stairs and to a cupboard she’d glanced in briefly when they moved in but hadn’t given a second thought since. There was a small pile of board games right at the back, covered in dust and looking at least 40 years old. Oh well, she thought, what’s the worst that can happen?

After removing the concerningly thick layer of dust, Alison brought the games into the drawing room to the confusion but interest of the ghosts. Only Pat and Julian seemed to recognise the games, so Alison asked them what they wanted to play first.

"How about Scrabble? Everyone likes Scrabble!" Pat suggested.

"Boring!" Julian sighed. "The only fun way to play Scrabble is-"

"How does one play this Scrabble?" The Captain asked, interrupting Julian to the relief of the others.

It took Pat and Alison quite a while to explain the rules, but eventually Alison gave the ghosts their tiles and the game began. However, in their excitement, Pat and Alison had overlooked one fundamental problem: the ghosts couldn't spell. The Captain, Fanny, Pat and Thomas were decent, but Julian and Kitty kept inventing words and Mary and Robin were barely literate, not to mention the differences in language between the ghosts' eras. The ghosts spent fifteen minutes debating whether or not the word 'snollygoster' should be allowed, with Mary refusing to provide more definition than 'Julian', with Julian pushing tiles out of place in retaliation. The game ended with Thomas storming off when 'mawkish' was outlawed, and the ghosts decided to try another board game.

Unfortunately, the only one enthusiastic to play Risk was the Captain, who spent the whole time lecturing the others on battle strategy but was at a loss for words when he was absolutely decimated by Kitty.

Trivial Pursuit didn't go much better, with Pat being the only one able to answer most of the questions in the 1981 edition they had, although Julian got the odd one too. Pat ended up giving more and more obvious hints after he'd won and Julian's victory dances whenever he got a question right were getting more and more alarming so they decided to call it a day.

Alison did not let the ghosts play Monopoly.

3.

Alison was at a particularly loose end on her phone when Kitty flopped down on the bed next to her. 

"What are you doing on your telly-phone Alison?"

"Oh, I'm just doing some BuzzFeed quizzes."

Kitty looked confused. "What is a Buzzy Food?"

"No, BuzzFeed. It's a media company and they have some weird but pretty fun quizzes. Look, the one I’m doing is 'Design a room and we'll tell you what sweet treat you are'."

"But how do they know?" Kitty asked, slightly concerned.

"They don't, and sometimes the answers really don't match you. But sometimes they're freakily accurate - earlier a quiz guessed my exact age based on my choice of sweets. Here, you have a go. Which wallpaper would you choose?"

"Ooh, the pink one with the flowers!"

By the time it was established that Kitty was fairy cakes, the ghosts had begun gathering and demanding their turns. The Captain and Pat were quite pleased with their results of a chocolate digestive and millionaire shortbread respectively, as was Julian with jammy dodgers and Mary with apple pie. However, Thomas and Fanny seemed more confused by peanut butter cups and black forest gateaux, and Robin was very confused but somewhat pleased with birthday cake funfetti cookies. 

The ghosts were eager to do more quizzes, but by the time Alison had done the quiz on behalf of all the ghosts her phone was on 4% and she had to promise them more another time.

4.

While the ghosts adored Friends, some of them were getting a little bored of it by their 5th rewatch, so Alison decided to find them some more TV shows to watch. 

The ghosts enjoyed watching Bake Off with her, although perhaps a little too much. The Captain in particular got very into it, shouting at a contestant that they hadn’t whipped their egg whites enough, despite the fact that Alison suspected he’d never baked in his life. Mary’s comments were scarily accurate, often picking up on minor errors bakers had made that no one else managed to spot but ended up causing their bake to flop. It was also Mary who managed to predict the winner in week 3, and Thomas whose prediction for star baker every week would be the one leaving the tent.

Alison had managed to find some Jane Austen box sets on ebay and the ghosts enjoyed watching them. Thomas and Kitty in particular loved them, although Fanny had a not-so-hidden soft spot for Mr Darcy (and despite several good lords, the Captain had his eyes glued to the screen during the lake scene). And even though Julian and Robin protestated that it was boring, Alison managed to spot some tears in their eyes during the wedding scene in Pride and Prejudice. They watched an episode a day over six days and the ghosts spent the rest of the time discussing the previous episode and what they thought would happen next, Fanny being the only one who had read the book. There were some pretty heated arguments about whether Lizzy should have accepted Mr Darcy the first time and about Wickham’s character, but by the time they got to the last episode they were in agreement, and were excited to watch Emma.

The TV show that caused the most arguments, however, was Agatha Christie’s Poirot. The Captain had read several of the books in his youth, and claimed he would be able to solve all the mysteries. Thomas also claimed that, with his intellect, he would be able to work it out, with Julian saying it would be ‘easy’. In reality, the ghost who worked out the most mysteries was Kitty, having a surprisingly intuitive sense for who was guilty or who had seemed to show a reason for murder. Mary and Robin were the only other ghosts who had managed to figure out the murderer, with Julian, Thomas and the Captain always falling for the red herring. Alison was slightly glad that Julian had no money to bet, because he certainly would have lost it all.

Despite the arguments and shouting, Alison quickly discovered that TV was a good way to keep the ghosts out of her hair for a bit, and decided to buy some more box sets.

5.

“I’ve had an idea, Alison!”

She glanced at Pat, slightly apprehensive. “What is it?”

“We can play musical chairs!”

“Hmm.” She considered it, before nodding. “That’s not actually a bad idea!”

While Pat explained the rules to the other ghosts, Alison set up the chairs, found the speaker and put on her ABBA playlist, preparing herself for the inevitable carnage. 

And, of course, carnage ensued. The ghosts were their usual highly competitive selves, and several threats of disqualification did nothing to stop the pushing and shoving. Mary won the first round with some slightly questionable elbow use and the Captain the second, saying his running had paid off. Thomas sulked after being the first person out three times in a row and Robin claimed to have won the third round over Julian, despite the fact that they both clearly cheated several times.

The only way Alison could find to prevent another all out fight was to clear away the chairs and turn the game into Musical Statues, letting the ghosts dance off their anger. In the end, the ghosts were all so knackered by their game they had an early night, leaving Mike and Alison to watch some TV in peace, so Alison chalked it up as a win.

+1.

Alison sat by the window, staring out of it slightly morosely and sighing.

Concerned, the ghosts watched from a nearby doorway.

“She’s acting like Thomas! That can’t be a good sign,” Pat whispered.

“She miss Michael. House is boring without him,” Robin replied.

“Oh, we must do something! We have to cheer her up somehow!” Kitty exclaimed, being shushed by the others, although Alison didn’t seem to hear.

“Well, a good husband wouldn’t leave her like that. It’s beastly behaviour,” Thomas huffed.

“He’s gone to Glasgow for two days, man, he’s hardly abandoned her! But Katherine’s right, we ought to do something. What’s cheered her up before?” the Captain asked.

“I might have an idea,” Fanny said slowly. “Do you remember what we did at Christmas?”

“Christmas carols? But it’s March, guys!”

“Yes, we know that, but, um, Kitty was in a very Christmassy mood!” The Captain gave Kitty a nudge and she looked a little confused but nodded profusely.

“I love singing Christmas carols, and it was so fun at Christmas so I thought we could do it again!”

“Oh, alright. Let me just find the sheet music.”  
While Alison still sighed a little during Away in a Manger, by Hark! the Herald Angels Sing she was starting to smile and she was positively grinning by O Come, All Ye Faithful. Even Kitty’s slightly pitchy attempts at the descants couldn’t dampen her mood. The ghosts’ smiles grew too as Alison’s did, and they sang through the whole book of carols. After they finished with In the Bleak Midwinter, Alison turned to the ghosts.

“Thanks guys. I wasn’t feeling great earlier - I was bored and missing Mike. But you’ve really cheered me up, so thank you!”

“Ah, Alison. We were only returning the favour.”

**Author's Note:**

> well, i hope you enjoyed that! have a very merry christmas!!
> 
> a snollygoster is 'a shrewd, unprincipled person, especially a politician'
> 
> as always please come chat to me on tumblr @bertie-w-wooster :))


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